Rich Dog Millionaire™ » E-Retailing

A Clever Viral Marketing Technique: “Fresh Balls”

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:15:15 +0000

How would you like people to email your website link to everybody they know — for your site to go viral, as they say.

Think about it: Why do people forward links, pictures, videos, to their friends? How can you create a website or a marketing campaign that would lead people to hit the forward button? Jokes and sex are obvious examples. Check out the internet store link below. This link, with a clever video, has been popping up in inboxes:

http://freshballs.com/

Now, keep in mind: this is only one part of a campaign. You got them to your site. Then you have to convert them and convince then to buy. Does this sales pitch do it? It’s funny, it’s clever, it’s well produced, but will they buy it? We’re just asking. One downside to using humor, is that people don’t take your product seriously; you may not develop the trust necessary. Ultimately, there has to be a market for your product and those consumers have to be convinced — and trust — that your product is what they need (beer seems to be an exception). It’s one thing to get viral buzz; it’s another to convert.

A quick check of Alexa reports that “time on site (in minutes) peaked on Dec 21 at about four minutes. That doesn’t give much time to go through a shopping cart. Now “time on site” is down to two and a half minutes, which is roughly the length of the video.

Technorati Tags: E-Retailers, Fresh Balls, internet stores, Make money online, Online Stores, Traffic Building, viral buzz, viral marketing

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Book Review: “The 4-Hour Workweek: Expanded & Updated” by Timothy Ferriss

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:56:51 +0000

We originally reviewed “The 4-Hour Work Week” here. As we said, the three chapters on “Income Autopilot” are probably among the best, concise step by step guides to building a successful, profitable, automated internet store. But this book is more than that — it’s how to reboot your life. Reading this book is like taking the red pill and discovering you have been living in The Matrix. It’s about escaping the rat race, yes, but — to use another movie metaphor — “You’re no longer part of the System. You’re above the System. Over it. Beyond it…. We are” the New Rich (NR), as Ferriss calls it. The author says: “How is it possible that all the people in the world need exactly eight hours to accomplish their work? It isn’t. Nine to five is arbitrary.” This and other “rules” are just so much software that has been plugged into our brains. Ferris teaches you DEAL (or DELA if you are currently employed), which stands for Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation. The new expanded edition has over 100 pages of new content, including updated resources and more real word examples and suggestions from members of the NR. It’s about how to use technology more effectively, but it’s also about making more effective decisions — i.e., applying the 80/20 rule to everything, ruthlessly. Topics include outsourcing, mini-retirements (rather than waiting until you’re older) and the concept of geoarbitrage. We recommend you take this red pill. Here’s the link to Amazon: The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.

(Reviewed by Rich Dog Millionaire.com)

Technorati Tags: 4-Hour Work Week, 4-Hour Workweek, Automation, How to make money online, make money at home, Make money online, Outsourcing, Tim Ferris, Tim Ferriss, Timothy Ferris, Timothy Ferriss

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A Lesson From “The Twilight Zone”

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:37:45 +0000

We were watching “The Twilight Zone” marathon on Sify and saw the stopwatch episode (”A Kind of Stopwatch”) – where Patrick Thomas McNulty gets a most unusual stopwatch that can freeze time. What struck us was the scene — the black and white office life of the early 1960s. All of the employees — each at his or her desk — each doing seemingly monotonous, repetitive tasks — only to be interrupted by the favor of a breakfast cart, with coffee and a coffee cake. The protagonist, McNulty, is the oddball — in a world where oddballs do not fit in. In his narration, Rod Serling calls McNulty “the biggest bore on Earth.” He fills the office suggestion box with all kinds of ideas — oddball ideas — that have no place in this world (but could perhaps be a fantastic product for an internet store, a half-century later). It’s like this episode is a parable (or fable) in which the stopwatch is the key to escaping this black and white world. Only the story was written by someone from this world, so the stopwatch becomes immoral (McNulty uses it to rob a bank).

But this is what really struck us: Human beings are still doing the same damn thing a half century later — the same habits, the same lifestyle patterns. Of course we have and use the our technology — the internet, email, etc — but we use it in ways that essentially reinforce obsolete routines. For example, we all get in our cars to sit on the highway during rush hour, to go to and from offices — back and forth, nine to five. We spend hours at our desks and hours in meetings. When we should be harnassing our ideas and dreams, like so many McNultys, using current technology to build internet businesses instead of filling suggestion boxes.

(original content by Rich Dog Millionaire.com)

Technorati Tags: A Kind of Stopwatch, Blog marketing, How to make money online, internet stores, Make money online, Online Stores, Rich Dog Millionaire, Rod Serling, Syfy, Twillight Zone, Ways to make money

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Amazon Going Brick and Mortar?

admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:19:03 +0000

The Sunday Times is reporting that Amazon is secretly looking for store locations in Britain. Amazon is denying the rumors. But one wonders if there is fire behind that smoke. It may be an attempt to go after the “click and collect” market — where consumers buy online and pick up in-store.

Technorati Tags: Amazon.com, brick and mortar, Britain, E-Retailers, internet stores, Online Stores, Sunday Times

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Musicnotes.com Hits $1 Million Sales Per Month (Update)

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

As reported in Internet Retailer, www.musicnotes.com has hit sales of $1 million for the month of Nov, a 25% increase over last Nov; with annual sales of $11 million. Musicnotes sells licensed sheet music of nearly 110,000 songs that can be downloaded — no shipping or handling necessary. This is the kind of business we like — finding a niche and designing an automated architecture, with repeatable sales. The company was founded in 1999 and is based in Madison, Wisconsin. Is privately-held, and currently has about 40 employees. The site now reaches about 120,000 visitors per day and 20% of its sales are international.

UPDATE: A reader just advised us of a possible scam related to musicnotes.com. We do not know if it’s true.

Technorati Tags: Automation, downloadable, international, Internet Retailer magazine, Make money online, making money with music, musicnotes.com, sheet music

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Cyber Monday Sales May Hit Record

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:45:57 +0000

Amazon and Wal-Mart.com are leading the pack to a record Cyber Monday…

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Cyber Monday, E-Retailers, internet stores, Online Stores, walmart.com

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Making Money with Porn iPhone Apps

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:40:13 +0000

We’ve seen this before: porn is a launch-pad for making money with a new technology:

As reported on Huffington, a company called MIKandi has taken advantage of Apple’s ban on adult content on its iPhone app store and used it as an opportunity to build a profitable business:

As Phandroid notes, MiKandi is tapping into a potentially huge market opportunity:

“There is a reason that pornography leads the internet in traffic and revenue and with everybody going after the mobile web, it’s a wonder that some enterprising adult company didn’t pursue this earlier. ”

Technorati Tags: Adult, Android Market, Apple, E-Retailers, erotic, iPhone App Store, Make money online, making money with porn, MIKandi, Mobile Web, Online Stores, porn

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Black Friday Counter-Intelligence

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:07:24 +0000

Here’s a handy list of what retailers are doing this year. This would be good to put into your intelligence file, for your own internet store. Here’s a summary of the top five: (details at Iteya)

1. Amazon: Free Super Saving Shipping on $25+ orders

2. eBay: Up to 90% off retail for some items

3. Fingerhut: Low monthly payments and six special offers

4. Walmart: Big markdowns on certain products

5. Kmart: $5 off $50 purchase with code KMART5OFF50

Happy Thanksgiving

Technorati Tags: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, E-Retailers, internet stores

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Some Facts About Cyber Monday

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:39:15 +0000

Cyber Monday is, of course, the online shopping version or followup to Black Friday. Is Cyber Monday the busiest online shopping day of the year? No. According to Snopes, the busiest day for internet sales occurs around mid-December. Cyber Monday, meanwhile, has only been about the 12th busiest online shopping day. Cyber Monday is a relatively new invention, having been dreamed up as a promotional event by Shop.org in 2005.

It pays to be aware of how consumer shopping habits are evolving around Black Friday. There is now a “2-Day” sale that runs from Friday to Saturday. There are also “Pre-Black Friday” sales that run the four days leading up to Thanksgiving, often advertised in Sunday circulars. So there are many variations, and you can certainly come up with something that might work for your internet store. Here’s another fact to keep in mind, as reported by Snopes: consumers are going online Thanksgiving Day, to plot their strategy for the big day. Mass merchants incorporate their online operations into BF. Cyber Monday is now a secondary priority for the onlines ops of these retailers. They will still take advantage of the Cyber Monday opportunity — but BF and 2-Day are more important to them.

Should you do a Cyber Monday or Black Friday promotion for your site? It’s not an automatic yes but the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is when retailers make most of their money. And don’t think you’re too late. While, the big brick and mortars plan for BF a year or more in advance, we’ve heard from one source that at least one big retailer went into the weekend still making their online plans — ah, the power of digital.

If you want to see what’s going on, check out www.cybermonday.com. The site is run by shop.org, a community of over 700 digital retailers.

Technorati Tags: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, E-Retailers, internet stores, Online Stores, shop.org, Snopes

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Amazon Offering Up to 15% Commission on Black Friday Sale

admin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:39:45 +0000

Amazon is reminding its Associates (aka affiliates) to link to its Black Friday deals and earn up to 15% . An important reminder: Don’t forget to take down the links after the sale ends.

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